Microsoft Releases OneNote as a Free Mac App Store Download

Do you have a reading comprehension problem? The ribbon interface was introduced back in 2007. The ribbon interface, in all of its forms, is an example of bad UI design. It took a dramatic turn for the worse in Office 2013 because the lack of depth and contrast because much worse in that iteration

What is your point of posting here other that blindly defending Microsoft and their poor UI decisions? I have to work with their stuff every day. Do you have a job in a microsoft "shop"? If not, then your opinion is irrelevant.

Yeah, no. The ribbon easily collapses to take the same space as the traditional menu interface when not in use, yet makes the vast majority of tools a 1-2 click affair as opposed to digging through nested menus. It's the best thing they've done to Office in years.

Everybody claims to like toolbars or tool palates, the Ribbon is just a collection of them.

Nobody wants these applications on a Mac. We already have this functionality for free from Apple with the Notes application that syncs seamlessly across all our computers and devices. "Free for a limited time" ha, good luck if you plan on trying to charge for this at a later date. :D

The Notes app doesn't have a sliver of the same functionality as OneNote or Evernote.

Meh, still overpriced.

No thanks, I'll stick with Evernote.

Running it on OS X now, and it's a very nice App. Hopefully this is the route that Microsoft will go down with the next Office for Mac, it's a very nice look and feel. Runs very smoothly too, miles better than the 2011 suite!

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Description says "Now available for free for a limited time".

Where? Not anywhere I can see...?

Can't wait to get home.

Goodbye Evernote.

Do you have a reading comprehension problem? The ribbon interface was introduced back in 2007. The ribbon interface, in all of its forms, is an example of bad UI design. It took a dramatic turn for the worse in Office 2013 because the lack of depth and contrast because much worse in that iteration

What is your point of posting here other that blindly defending Microsoft and their poor UI decisions? I have to work with their stuff every day. Do you have a job in a microsoft "shop"? If not, then your opinion is irrelevant.

If you had read more closely, you would have noticed that my main complain of the Ribbon concept is how Microsoft has arbitrarily grouped unrelated functions under the same tab because of space constraints. That was not a problem with the menu. The menu was hierarchical which meant that functions were grouped by groups and sub groups while everything is flattened into a tab now and it can take more time to find what you are looking for.

Microsoft should offer the user the option to use either a ribbon OR the menu and toolbars. They instead decided for the user which is arrogant.

Sounds like another company that we all know...:rolleyes:;)

I can't believe how negative everyone is on here !

You don't have to use this software you know !

I for one am glad it has been released and it will be great to now use OneNote on my PC and Mac..

Hope this is an indicator that the next version of Office for Mac is also coming soon..

Mistake

Description says "Now available for free for a limited time".

This is a mistake - we're working on removing the "free for a limited time" from the app store.

Ankur (MSFT)

What does Evernote do poorly and/or OneNote do better? (curious - i've never used ON)

How is this better than Evernote? Honest question. What advantages does it offer?

I've used both products heavily for a number of years so I have some opinions on this. I generally prefer OneNote but have been an Evernote Premium subscriber for years due to the lack of a Mac app and limited mobile support, so I'm their target here.

OneNote wins in my opinion in UI - Evernote has a very traditional flat notepage interface where organizing things in anything other than a fixed linear format is difficult. OneNote treats each page as an endless canvas where you can paste almost any content in any location with no traditional formatting limits - ie. you can insert a photo, type some text around it, add some drawings, and each element remains separate and able to be moved to any location on the page even overlaying other elements. This, and the fact that it overall looks and feels like other Office apps means there is little learning curve.

OneNote also does a better job at replicating a traditional tabbed notebook structure that 'feels' a lot more natural than Evernote which wants you to rely on tags for organization. I hate tags and think they are a complete kludge to a poor UI.

Evernote also has a size limit to an individual notebook that I don't have too much trouble running into when I start adding a lot of pictures. I haven't run into that issue with Onenote.

That said, Evernote does do a reliably good job at updating their apps on all platforms, so I will likely stick with it until OneNote proves the same to me. I'll probably move some notebooks back to OneNote to test and see how it goes.